Martinů B. String Quartets Nos.2,4,5 / Kocian Quartet (SACD hybrid)

1.-3. Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) - String Quartet No.2 H 150 (1925) 19:45

4.-7. Bohuslav Martinů - String Quartet No.4 H 256 (1937) 20:24

8.-11. Bohuslav Martinů - String Quartet No.5 H 268 (1938) 26:31

Kocian Quartet

The composer of Julietta left seven string quartets that do not, by any means, form a cycle but rather a succession of testimonies stretching from 1920 to 1947. Here are juxtaposed a ‘modern canvas painted’ in 1925 (Quartet No.2), a neo-Baroque divertimento (Quartet No.4) from the spring of 1937, and finally, the unexpected masterpiece, intimate and violent (No.5, 1938), written during the stuffy pre-war atmosphere, the da camera counterpart of the Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani that Martinu had just finished for Paul Sacher.

(Praga Digitals 2005)